By John Hibberd Ph.D.
In 1854 the first Australian flag was raised and the first Oath of Australian National Loyalty was sworn “… by the Southern Cross”. These historic events occurred during the first Eureka Rebellion at Ballarat in Victoria. They would soon be repeated at Barcaldine in Queensland as the Native Australian people continued to build their vision of “One Nation united under the Southern Cross”.
The work of nation building began almost immediately.
In 1856 the Melbourne Trades Hall Committee started the process of Union Unification internally; and the drive towards federation of the Colonies began when stonemasons in Melbourne and Sydney united to form the 8 Hour Day Movement.
It is a funny thing, but even through the superficial Union focus was on the 8 Hour campaign throughout the Democratic Colonial Era, if one looks beneath the surface a much wider Nationalist agenda appears. The Boomerang, a journal published by the Queensland trade union movement said in 1887: ‘Australia is not a sect or section, is not a caste or a class or a creed, is not to be a Southern England nor yet another United States. … Australian policy is a continuance in that enlightenment which has already proved her, while still in the colonial stage, foremost among the states of the earth. This pre-eminence has not been won by aping the forms and fashions of other climes; it has been gained by disregard for precedence and custom, and by exercising without trammel the intellect which alone is worthy of heed ... And while thus devoting its political efforts to the furtherance of this one all-embracing principle, the Boomerang will endeavour in every way to aid the national spirit that is so sturdily developing. Its illustrations will be Australian; its stories and its sketches will be Australian: its humour will be Australian; and its articles and comments will tend to Australianise.”
In 1857, NSW proposed a conference to secure federal union among the Colonies but the meeting never took place. After the failure of Wentworth, Duffy and others in the late 1850's, Federation was seldom even discussed at the official level in the Colonies in the 60’s and 70’s. During this period the Colonies were busy developing their resources, building up wealth and population, and transforming themselves from raw outposts at the edge of the known world into civilized and highly urbanized communities.
This quest for respectability brought the Union Movement and many parts of wider society into harmony on the subject of Transportation; and the Anti-Transportation League finally succeeded in ending the practice in 1868. The unions got involved in this because of the use of that same Convict slave labour force to minimise the wages of free workers.
The politicians of this era remained preoccupied with "roads and bridges" issues, but some problems did require common action. These included the tariff question postal and telegraphic communications, and defence. In the absence of any form of federation, the method adopted for dealing with these issues was the summoning of inter-colonial conferences, eight of which met between 1863 and 1880. A few purely administrative matters were dealt with in this way, but where political considerations were involved it was difficult to get unanimity at a conference and even more difficult to get conference decisions implemented once the delegates had returned home.
Thus in 1870 yet another Intercolonial Conference was held in Melbourne but it too ended without reaching any clear agreements; while the following year, 1871, in Sydney, more than 3,000 people celebrated the annual picnic of the Eight Hour League. The league began the day with a procession from Captain Cook’s statue in Hyde Park, down to Circular Quay to board two steamers for Manly Beach. They carried flags and banners declaring ‘May industry be rewarded’, ‘Union is strength’ and ‘Eight Hours Labour, Eight Hours Recreation, Eight Hours Rest’. A couple of months latter the NSW Labour Council was established with almost 20 trade unions affiliating.
Also in 1871 the Australian Natives Association is formed in Melbourne.
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Absolutely nothing happened in 1872 and even 1873 started off ok, before it turned nasty. NSW coal miners had won a reduction in working hours from twelve down to ten and a half hours, after a six week strike, and there was a crackdown on Female Sweatshops in Victoria where factories were cleaned up and working hours reduced; but at the Lothair Mine in Clunes in Victoria in the December of 1873 the miners were told that they were no longer to be paid by contract but at a set rate of £2/2/0 per week or 7/- per shift at six shifts per week. This has amounted to a cut in pay. The miners had actually requested to have their break between 3.00 p.m. on Saturday and 7.00 a.m. on Monday, rather than the current system of a break between Saturday night and Sunday night. Miners had even offered to work during the requested break if the safety of the mine was at stake. This offer of a pay cut was the bosses return answer.
The management refused to negotiate and bought scab Chinese labour in from Ballarat. The news of the arrival of this 'blackleg' work force turned the town into a battlefield. Cornishmen converged on the Lothair Mine and wrecked buildings intended to house the Chinese. More than 1,000 miners, their wives and supporters set up a barricade of wagons, ploughs and tree-trunks at the junction of the Ballarat and Clunes roads and there they waited for the strike-breakers, who arrived escorted by Inspector Larner and his troopers. A shower of stones met the advancing convoy; then, as it halted, men, women and children left their barricade and stormed the coaches, “hauling out the frightened Chinese and handling them so roughly that they were glad when orders were given to the coach drivers to take them back to Ballarat”. The riot ended without loss of life; and the Lothair Mine resumed production, the management having agreed to the men's demand for a shorter Saturday shift.
In April of 1874 there was a strike in Cape York when the employers at the Moonta and Wallaroo mines suddenly announced there was to be an immediate reduction in wages there also. The men struck, but returned to work after their employers backed bad down and returned to the wage rates the miners had enjoyed before-hand. That wage rate was extended for two months on the condition that if there had been no increase in price of copper by then, the men would suffer a reduction in wages at that time. The miners acknowledged that they had received wage increases in the past two years and only asked for reasonable notice so they could organise their financial affairs prior the impending reduction. It was however a particularly bitter time for the 2,300 miners who heard reports that while their employers had announced their wage reductions, shareholders had received healthy dividends and a particularly encouraging director’s report.
We now skip over 1875 to discover that 1876 was a year of small victories for the working people of Australia. Queensland workers began a series of meetings to call for an eight hour day. In NSW, a Coal Miners Regulation Act was passed granting miners an eight hour day and improving ventilation and safety standards; while South Australia became the first Colony to legalise trade unions. The new S.A. law gave unions the right to own property and protected their funds. The Act also removed the right of employers to charge unions with conspiracy, which was possible under the previous law.
On the 2nd of May 1876 the last great Convict Escape occurred when a bunch of Irish Fenians’ bolted and jumped ship from WA.
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1877 and 78 passed quietly but in November 1879 seamen won a six-week strike against the ASN Company over the employment of Chinese labour in the ships’ crews. The dispute reached crisis point when union members refused to supply coal to any steamers belonging to the company.
The seamen received support from most sections of the community. For example on the 25th of November 1878 the residents in the Newcastle area held a meeting to support the strikers and in December 2,000 supporters demonstrated in George Street, Sydney. Several people tried to set fire to Chinese stores, which resulted in a riot that was put down by the deployment of police cavalry. The Queensland government also supported the union by threatening to withdraw the company’s annual £7,000 subsidy for the carriage of mail if it continued to hire Chinese labour.
The company finally agreed to reduce its employment of Chinese workers from 180 down to 130 within three months but it became clear during this strike that the Colonies were now facing the new and terrible problem, that of cross-boarder union disputes. Each colony could only deal with that portion of the dispute that was happening within its own boarders. The union was united but the Colonies were disconnected.
On the 2nd of December 1878 ‘Advance Australia Fair’ performed for the first time and on the 11th the Kelly Gang bailed up the National Bank at Euroa.
In February 1879 the Kelly Gang struck again at Jerilderie and in November three people were killed in a shootout between Captain Moonlite and police.
On the 6th of October 1879, trade unions from all Colonies met in conference and one year latter, in November 1880, the Colonies themselves held their next Inter-colonial Conference. Henry Parkes moved for the establishment of a Federal Council, however when the Bill was put to the vote only South Australia, Tasmania and New South Wales were in favour; Victoria, Queensland and New Zealand were against, and Western Australia abstained, so that the Colonies were equally divided and the Bill lapsed.
In February 1880 the Bulletin was published for the first time, in June the Kelly Gang was captured or killed by police in a famous shootout; and six months latter the leader of the first Eureka Rebellion Peter Lalor was elected Speaker in the Victorian Assembly.
In December of 1881 the NSW Parliament passed a Bill declaring trade unions legal, five years after the SA Government’s pioneering legislation.
3 July 1882 – “Robbery Under Arms” published
In November of 1882 the Sydney Wharf Labourers’ Union went out on strike. The union called for an increase in the hourly rate from 1/- to 1/3 (1 shilling to 1 shilling 3 pence) but the employers refused to back down and would not even recognise the legitimacy of the union. The employers soon found other men to do the work and after four weeks union workers returned to their jobs.
While this was happening in Sydney, in Melbourne 2,000 female clothing workers, who had been on strike for the previous five days after management had twice cut their piecework rates, met the Melbourne Trades Hall Committee and formed the Tailoresses’ Union, believed to be the first female trade union in the country. The employers offered the striking workers their jobs back at the former pay rates but the women rejected the offer and decided instead to continue their strike for a pay rise.
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On the 8th of December 1883, the next Intercolonial Conference was held to discuss Australia's role in the Pacific. Parkes was not present at this conference, but Samuel Griffith brought his Federal Council scheme forward and saw it was adopted. Griffith's Federal Council of Australasia Bill provided for each self-governing colony to have two Council representatives and for Crown Colonies like Western Australia (not self-governing until 1891) and Fiji (which sent delegates to the conference) to have one.
Although the proposal was adopted at the time it quickly failed subsequently on the ambivalence of the Colonies. The Council’s real agenda was to induce Britain to protect Australia's interests in the Pacific; the Colonies were still far from ready for a real federation.
Six months latter, on the 2nd of August 1884 a meeting of the Planters Association held in Mackay voted to cut the wages of all white workers by 10 per cent.
In March of 1985 frustrated Victorian employers formed a union of their own, following a long-running boot strike in that Colony; but in the December of that year conditions for Victorian women and children employed in factories and shops were protected by better legislation.
28 March 1886 - WA Convict system closes
1886 actually started off with quite a bang as wharf labourers staged an 18-day strike that was only resolved when the Wharf Labourers’ Union and the Employers’ Union agreed that wages should be set by an independent arbitration committee, with appointees from both bodies. In a major win for the Wharf Labourers’ Union, the last condition of the deal stated that the ship-owners must only employ union members from then on, but that non-union men who worked during the strike would be admitted to the union, if they were deemed eligible. This appears to have produced the first “Closed Shop” in Australia.
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The Federal Council of Australasia was established in 1886. It was an Intercolonial body with limited legislative power which met only intermittently until 1899; New South Wales never joined the Council. 1886 also saw shearers throughout NSW and Victoria take to trade unionism in huge numbers, with organisations springing up in Ballarat, Wagga and Bourke. It was also the year that Queensland followed the other Colonies in legalizing trade unions and protecting their funds.
In January 1888 Hobart hosted a meeting of the Federal Council; but not many attended.
It was also in 1888 that the NSW Government took the extraordinary step of sending troops to the Newcastle coalfields in a bid to crush riotous demonstrations being staged in the area. 6,000 striking miners and the colliery proprietors had been doing battle at the New Lambton Pit, near Adamstown over working conditions which miners say had changed little since 1873. Seven men were charged on counts of riot and unlawful assembly following a melee, in which more than 50 workers armed with sticks and stones gathered to intimidate strike-breakers. The seven, dubbed the "Adamstown Rioters’, faced court the following month.
This step of sending in troops instead of police changed the character of the event from a domestic economic matter, an industrial dispute, to a matter of national security, a matter touching on the security and sovereignty of the Crown. This was also the first indication that Parkes could see something bigger than a mere pay dispute brewing.
Certainly he was by now building up to make his big move. Only one year latter, On the 25th of October 1889 Sir Henry Parkes delivered his famous Tenterfield Address. After further negotiations, a small "informal" meeting was arranged for Melbourne in February 1890. That meeting decided in favour of a national convention at which a more thoroughgoing form of union than the Federal Council system could be planned. Thus it was that 45 delegates assembled in Sydney on 2nd of March 1891 for the first session of the National Australasian Convention. This was an illustrious affair; most of the delegates being distinguished leaders in their own Colonies; all the current premiers and quite a few former premiers were present. The first act of the Convention was to appoint Parkes to the position of President, and the completed work was a "Bill to constitute the Commonwealth of Australia".
21 December 1889 – “Clancy of the Overflow” by A.B. Banjo Patterson is published.
21 January 1890 – The Australian Natives Association holds an Intercolonial Conference in Melbourne. This national force of the people, reflecting the growing sense of Australian national and cultural identity within the heart of the people added to the escalating militarization of an increasingly national Union movement, to produce the massive grassroots pressures for federation that Sir Henry was trying to simultaneously capitalize on in his own thrust for federation, and at the same time contain and control by the use of the Army.
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12 December 1890 - The Blue Heeler and the Heidelberg School of Arts are born.
Also in July 1890 the Union Steamship Company conceded a pay rise of one pound to its employees, following arbitration. Many of the owners had privately conceded that an increase in pay was well justified and overdue. The Sydney Branch of the union, not affiliated with the Sydney Maritime Council, negotiated with the owners separately and was told that while their case was reasonable, it could not even be considered while-so-ever its Melbourne branch continued to be affiliated with the Melbourne Trades Hall. This action by the employers in forcing a cross-colonial issue into a simple pay dispute must be seen, with the benefit hind-sight, as a serious strategic mistake that created all sorts of problems for the colonial governments given that they had no effective means of co-operating together in response. In last minute mediation, officials of the union agreed to withdraw from the Melbourne Trades Hall, if employers agreed to compromise in a last minute meeting with a union delegation on the wages issue. The Ship-owners refused point-blank to meet the delegation, which thus precipitated a strike.
The maritime dispute formally began on the 15th of August 1890 when the Mercantile Marine Officers' Association directed its members to give 24 hours' notice to their employers. Industrial action quickly spread to seamen, wharf labourers and then to gas stockers. Coal miners from Newcastle, Broken Hill, and even New Zealand were locked out after refusing to dig coal for non-union operated vessels. The rapid spread of the strike from union to union and then across to New Zealand must have vastly increased the perception of a “General Up-rising”, which would have strengthened and validated the government’s use of military forces. By September 1890, 28,500 workers were on strike.
Five thousand gathered in the Sydney Domain on the 17th of August, and cheered a speaker's claim that 'the day of glory for the working class is at hand!' More ominous however, was the sight of seamen 'ringleaders' being marched off the 'Zealandia' to jail under a military escort with fixed bayonets.
In Melbourne, Police Commissioner Chomley alerted country police stations on the 19th of August that they, with carbines and swords, would possibly be needed in Melbourne.
On the 27th after further incidents involving 'free laborers' and unionists, Chomley ordered these reserves to deploy into the capital immediately.
'Mobs' stoning 'free laborers' on the wharves were cleared on two days running; and additional barricades were put up by special constables.
A 'furious' public’ - that is, a handful of fearful property owners, including Police Magistrate Nicolson - visited the Cabinet and had Melbourne put on a full war footing.
Detectives posed as insurance investigators to check the basement of the building where the Democratic Club met after an anonymous letter came to Premier Gillies claiming that 1,000 rifles were stored ”in a secret place in Lonsdale Street”. Despite such rumours and many vigorous investigations neither the police nor the government ever found any evidence of union intentions to engage in armed rebellion.
On the 20th of August more than 4,500 men employed on the Sydney wharves stopped work on a separate matter. The wharf labourers imposed a ban on handling bales of wool that had not been shorn under union conditions; this in support of the continuing battle between the shearers and pastoralists of NSW. Gangs were organised by the strike committee to guard the docks from the threat of non-union labour. Members of the Federated Seamen’s Union and the Stewards’ and Cooks’ Union joined this new strike also.
During these strikes military units were again extensively used in New South Wales and Victoria. Armed troops were deployed in Sydney, Melbourne, Newcastle and a number of other ports around Australia. Again, it is important to note the colonial governments’ statement here. Once troops are deployed the issue is raised from being a civil, industrial dispute up into the realms of rebellion.
In Melbourne, the announcement that a public meeting to support the Maritime strikers was going to be held on the 31st of August 1890 sent the Victorian government into panic mode.
On the eve of the meeting one thousand military volunteers were addressed by
Colonel Tom Price: "You will each be supplied with forty rounds of
ammunition and leaden bullets and if the order is given to fire, don't let me
see one rifle pointed up in the air. Fire low and lay them out".
That same evening machine gun nests were mounted behind parliament house.
Despite the military intimidation 60,000 protesters attended the meeting.
The Queensland military went on 'restricted leave', while in NSW, Premier Parkes met with Police Commissioner Fosberry and Colonel Richardson, the NSW military commander, but kept the deliberations a 'profound secret'. One of those secrets became public almost immediately. A Proclamation 'warning persons against acting together, endeavouring to intimidate and oppressively interfering with certain other of her Majesty's subjects in the lawful pursuit of their occupations' was pasted up in Newcastle on the 29th of August as a company of Permanent Artillery, plus their Nordenfeldts deployed north.
Reports tell us that unionists in Sydney were conducting themselves in 'an exemplary fashion' but stout barricades began to go up around the Circular Quay warehouses from the 1st of September anyway, that was the same day Parkes rejected the TLC offer of unionists to serve as special constables.
On the 19th of September, town 'blades' and defiant graziers drove bullock teams of wool bales to Circular Quay. Escorted by a team of mounted police, the train of nine trolleys set off in procession for the docks. Striking workers lined the route, loudly jeering and, tried to block the procession. What began as a noisy, but non-violent picket line soon boiled over into a furious brawl. As the brawl worsened a man appeared at an upper window of the dock stores and proceeded to read the Riot Act. This first 'mumbling’ of the Act completed, the mounted police charged the crowd and bedlam followed. What is borne out by eye-witness drawings is a vision of the panic stricken bystanders trying to escape the plunging, rearing horses, while a number of verbal accounts refer to swords being drawn against individuals, of the 'extreme viciousness' of the constables, and of continuing attack and counterattack through the lanes and back streets around the Quay for some hours afterwards. Many large fires broke out around this time. Claims about 'incendiaries' were made and enquiries instituted but no evidence to support the claims came to light.
The Parkes Ministry had ordered out the troops in the great Newcastle coalfields strike; but this was worse, much worse. Acting Premier McMillan actually gave orders for Gatling guns to be used to mow down the people “should they show any fight during the procession of the wool to the Quay.” - although Parkes, laid up with a broken leg, sent a canceling order from his sick room which arrived just in time to spare a massacre. Acting Premier McMillan was henceforth universally known as “Machine-gun McMillan” thereafter.
Parkes spoke of the union leaders being guilty of “revolutionary conspiracies” when he effectively assumed personal command of the military and the police by demanding that all new security arrangements would have to come through him directly. This strongly suggests that Parkes must have felt under pressure to install his vision of the Commonwealth before the people installed theirs.
That direct claim of 'revolutionary conspiracies' did not resurface, but perhaps only because the people was being whipped up by speeches like the following of A.G. Taylor, a member of the NSW parliament: “The menacing attitude of the Government merely invited every working man in NSW to erect barricades ... hang tyrannical capitalists, shoot the Ministry themselves down like bloody dogs, ... haul down the Union Jack, hoist the flag of NSW republicanism and pulverise the public statues of the Queen and her consort.”
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By this time the military was also in serious trouble. On the 15th of September, just four days before the NSW militia would have faced their major test, Lieutenant-Colonel Mackenzie was asked by his commanding officer to write to the Victorian Secretary of Defence to request 'a copy of any Local Act or Regulation... regarding the calling out of the Militia Forces in connection with riots'. A reply was sent on the 17th, that 'we [Victoria] have no Act neither are there any clauses in our Discipline Act providing for calling out the militia in aid of civil power'. Thus the Unions were acting in a unified manner but thte military was unable to.
The Marine Officers finally returned to work on the employer’s terms in November 1890, with the Illawarra coal miners being the last to return in January 1891. A shortage of money to sustain the strike and a plentiful supply of scabs eventually defeated the strikers. Wage cuts were introduced for everyone in the maritime industry, with cuts of up to 30 per cent in some cases.
In 1891 the shearers' strike began. By 1890 the Australian Shearers’ Union boasted tens of thousands of members, and had unionised thousands of sheds. Working conditions for sheep shearers in 19th Century Australia were atrocious. In 1891 wool was one of Australia's largest industries; but as the wool industry grew, so did the number and influence of shearers.
At their annual conference in Bourke in 1890, the Union had laid down a new rule, which prohibited members from working with non-union workers. Soon after, shearers at Jondaryan Station on the Darling Downs went on strike over this issue. As non-union labour was still able to process the wool, the Jondaryan shearers called for help. The Rockhampton wharfies responded and refused to touch the Jondaryan wool. The unionists won the battle.
This galvanised the squatters, and they formed the Pastoralists’ Federal Council, to counter the strength of the unions. Many union shearers were also outraged when Logan Downs Station Manager Charles Fairbain asked the shearers to sign a contract that would have reduced the power of their union. The battle lines were drawn, conflict was not far away; the only question was where and when.
On the 5th of January 1891 the shearers announced a strike until the following demands for a contract were met: 1. Continuation of existing rates of pay 2. Protection of workers' rights and privileges. 3. Just and equitable agreements 4. Exclusion of low-cost Chinese labour.
The strike spread quickly. From February through until May, central Queensland was on the brink of civil war. Striking shearers formed armed camps outside of towns. Thousands of heavily armed soldiers protected non-union labour and arrested strike leaders. The unionists retaliated by raiding shearing sheds, harassing non-union labour and committing acts of sabotage.
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On the 3rd of March a National Australasian Convention was held in which the declaration 'One people, one destiny’ was made; and on the 28th of March dozens of shearers were arrested in the Queensland towns nearest to the shearers’ camps. In particular, eleven strikers with three union leaders among them were arrested near the Sandy Creek Camp. The three leaders were taken at Clermont railway station and were charged with conspiracy. A short-lived scuffle broke out between police and two of the men, Taylor and Stewart. The handcuffed trio was then marched through the town under heavy police guard. In a second action, eight union shearers were arrested and charged with causing a riot when they tried to prevent free labourers from traveling to work at Peak Downs.
On the following Wednesday, in a carefully planned police operation, another seven shearers were arrested in Barcaldine. Around noon, two divisions of mounted infantry rode up and formed a line outside the union office in the town’s main street, virtually hemming in a large crowd of onlookers. A contingent of police then walked through the mounted lines and into the office, arresting five men. The prisoners were then marched across the street into the police station where they were charged with conspiracy and immediately put into cells. Two more men were arrested on the same charge several hours later.
Tales of intimidation of strike-breakers and disturbing reports of violence in the bush were commonplace in many Queensland towns. Incidents of paddocks being set on fire, fences destroyed and houses, barns and woolsheds being torched were revealed during the many court cases, but police said they often felt powerless to make arrests as they were usually outnumbered by strikers.
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There were said to be at least 1,000 armed strikers camped outside Barcaldine on the 1st of May 1891 when the Eureka Flag was raised for a second time and the Eureka Oath was re-sworn.
They also staged one of the first May Day marches to take place anywhere in the world.
The Sydney Morning Herald reported that 1,340 men took part, of whom 618 were mounted on horse. The leaders wore blue sashes and the Eureka Flag was carried. Banners carried included those of the Australian Labor Federation, the Shearers' and Carriers' Unions, and one inscribed 'Young Australia'. The Labor Bulletin reported that cheers were given for "the Union", "the Eight-hour day", "the Strike Committee" and "the boys in jail".
But the shearers were unable to hold out in the end. By the 10th of August 1891 the Pastoralists had emerged as the victors. The summer had been unseasonably wet, and the strike was poorly timed for maximum effect on the shearing season (winter). By May the union camps were full of hungry penniless shearers. The strike had been broken. The squatters had won this time, but it had proved a costly exercise.
The 1891 Shearers Strike is credited as being one of the factors for the formation of the Australian Labor Party. Henry Lawson's well known poem, Freedom on the Wallaby, was written as a comment on the strike and published by William Lane in “The Worker” in Brisbane, May 16, 1891. Banjo Paterson's song Waltzing Matilda, the unofficial Australian anthem, tells a story of rebellion against authority and a confrontation with police that takes place on a sheep station. It was also written about this era of shearers' strikes in Queensland.
In October 1891 a Trades and Labour Council was formed in Perth and in August of 1892 a Woman’s Division within the Australian Workers Union is formed.
5 October 1892 - Sheffield Shield commences. (Whether this was designed to aid unification or to keep the Colonies perpetually at war is open to question.)
In July 1982 the Broken Hill mine owner’s decided to reverse the 1889 wage agreement and substitute piecework rates for time rates. 5,000 miners were immediately called out. Mine owners then brought in non-union labour. Brawls, arrests, riots and drunkenness characterised Broken Hill once the non-union labour was introduced. Disturbances in and around the Hill had so escalated the tension that many women were ordered by their husbands to stay indoors.
The police seemed determined to crush the increasing chaos in the town and a detachment of 100 extra police was sent from Sydney by train only to be attacked by a riotous mob on arrival.
In the September, seven prominent leaders of the Broken Hill miners’ strike were arrested and found themselves facing between seven and ten years’ jail for conspiracy. After an initial raid on the committee’s rooms, in which all books and papers were seized, police swooped on a meeting being held in the Theatre Royal. A large crowd of onlookers gathered in Argent Street as about 40 constables surrounded the building. Detectives A. Goulder and G. Brown marched into the meeting to make the arrests.
As the mob of noisy supporters grew, more armed police were dispatched to keep the peace. At one point, police were also forced to disperse a crowd which had gathered around the police station where the men were being held.
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They appeared in court around 3.00 p.m. and were charged in relation to public statements they had made. The men were formally charged with conspiring to ‘incite, move and persuade great numbers of the liege subjects of our Lady Queen to riots, tumults and breaches of the peace’. A second charge of conspiracy to prevent and intimidate ‘certain of Her Majesty’s liege subjects from carrying on and following their lawful occupations' as also brought against the men. Bail was refused and the men were remanded in custody. The strike was eventually settled anyway.
The following year, in July of 1893, the entire crew of the steamship Yaralla appeared at the Brisbane Police Court on charges of disobeying the orders of the Captain. The men, who walked off the ship in protest over a pay cut, as usual, pleaded guilty and were duly convicted.
Their solicitor caused a bit of a stir in the courtroom when he suggested his clients be jailed for one minute. The presiding police magistrate sentenced the crew to six hours’ jail and docked them two days’ pay. One of the crew, Henry Green, was also fined £2 for assault. The men could not be sent back to the ship as the Varalla had left port by then.
This incident was merely the latest in an ongoing dispute over seamen’s wages. Steamship owners cut sailors’ pay by £1 per month so the seamen went on strike; however the ship-owners had no trouble signing up other workers willing to take the new rate of pay, which was making it tough for the unionists at that time.
Earlier in Sydney, five crews totaling 66 men had been arrested on the first day of the strike. The first to be arrested was the 10-strong crew of the Macleay on similar charges as the Yaralla‘s crew. The crew was sentenced to 14 days’ jail. The crews of the Wodonga, the City of Grafton, Wyralla and Baroo followed the men of the Macleay, all on identical charges. Only the Macleay crew was jailed, the others received bail at £10 each.
The following year the dispute between the Shearers and pastoralists flared again over a new demand that workers take a pay cut of up to six shillings. On the 17th of June 1894 a meeting of the Longreach Branch of the Australian Workers’ Union voted not to accept work this season unless the old rates of pay were on offer.
On the 5th of July armed shearers burnt down an expensive woolshed on a remote Queensland shearing station. About 20 men brandishing rifles rounded up a group of strike-breakers working on the Ayrshire Downs Station, 30 miles from Winton. The employees were held at gunpoint while the gang’s ringleaders torched the property’s woolshed. In just a few short minutes, nothing was left of the expensive shed. Queensland Colonial Secretary Mr Tozer instructed the police magistrate from Winton to swear in a special emergency contingent of constables to investigate the incident.
On the 14th of December 1893 eucalyptus oil was manufactured for the first time; and on the 5th of May 1894 the term “Fair Dinkum” first appeared in print in the Bulletin.
On the 26th of August 1894 unionists forced strike-breaking shearers off the river steamer ‘Rodney’ near Pooncarie, NSW and on the 4th of September a full-scale gun battle between police and rebel shearers broke out on a sheep station north-west of Winton. Police witnesses say around 40 shots were fired and one unionist was killed.
The battle began when 16 armed men burnt the Dagworth Station woolshed to the ground. The owners of Dagworth, the three Macpherson brothers, had engaged a constable to help them guard the shed from the nightly burning sprees which have become common in the area. About 12.30 a.m. several shots were fired into the shed. The four then opened fire on their attackers. During the 20-minute battle one of the rebels crept unseen to the shed and set it alight.
A few hours later a man, a prominent unionist, was found dead about two miles from Kyruna. Police believe the man, named Haffmeister, may have been wounded in the gun battle at Dagworth. Dagworth Station, which shears about 80,000 sheep a season, is situated on the Upper Diamantina about 70 miles north-west of Winton.
The shearers’ strike was by now so serious that the Colonial Secretary, Mr Tozer, told the Queensland Parliament that the Colony was on the verge of full-scale insurrection.
In the wake of the violence, the government passed the Peace Preservation Bill on the 6th of September 1894. The carrying of firearms became illegal under a new Bill. Being in possession of ammunition is also an offence and suspects could be searched and arrested on the spot. Premises suspected of containing firearms could also be searched. This measure finally brought the violence to and end and the dispute was eventually resolved.
On the 9th of February 1895 the word “Cobber” first appears in print in the Bulletin
On the 6th of April “Waltzing Matilda” first sung at the North Gregory Hotel, Winton, Queensland.
On the 27th of April 1896 the cause of unity suffered a terrible blow when Sir Henry Parkes died with his wife at his bedside.
On the 15th of July 1896 a crippling 11 week NSW miners’ strike came to an end when employees voted to return to work in a mass ballot. While the majority of miners wanted to end the strike, which began over the usual proposed pay cut, many others were ready to keep fighting.
By now the aggression of the employers was becoming significant problem for the government, even though they had been allies up until this point. After NSW Premier Mr George Reid took the unprecedented step of intervening in the industrial stalemate, mine proprietors revised their offer to workers. In the revised offer, mine owners said they had no objection in principle to workers belonging to unions, but insisted that miners strike individual deals with their respective proprietors. (How similar is this to the Howard Government’s I.R. Laws today?)
In September 1896 moving pictures arrived in Sydney and on the 21st of March 1897 the horseless carriage arrived.
Four months latter the people were finally given their chance to speak of the Federation Issue when a large Federal Convention was held in Bathurst in November 1896. Unlike a similar conference held in 1891, delegates attending this convention came from the ranks of the people rather than those who exercised powered in the colonial Parliaments. The main organisations represented are several branches of the Federation League in Victoria and NSW, branches of the Australian Natives' Association, Municipal Councils, Chambers of Commerce, the Chamber of Manufacturers, plus many Progress Associations, the Republican Union and the Labour Electoral Leagues.
By now the momentum towards federation was unstoppable but the Colonies continued to resist. In the March of 1898 the Third Federal Convention in Melbourne was held. The premiers agreed to cut postal rates to Britain. This move represented one of the few concrete outcomes of the Melbourne conference, which did more to highlight the need for a federal government than it did to form policy on any practical issues.
In 1898 the NSW Premier, Mr George Reid was accused of blocking the road to Federation by single-handedly engineering the failure of the country’s first Federation Referendum, which was held in NSW on the 3-4 June. In fact it was only in 1899 that the Queensland and Western Australian governments finally said ‘yes’ to Federation.
8 October 1899 – The word “Wowser” first appears in the Melbourne Truth.
Not that the people and their organisations had any doubt about where they were going. On the 26th of January 1900 the Intercolonial Conference of state Labour Parties unanimously voted for the establishment of a Federal Labour Party.
On the 1st of January 1901 the Commonwealth of Australia is born. One Nation united under the Southern Cross. At last!!
Advance Australia Fair!!
